


anything but temptation

by clytemnestras



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 04:24:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12028047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clytemnestras/pseuds/clytemnestras
Summary: Mac looks at Charlie, rangy limbs and hopeful glint in his eye, and no time has passed since they were sitting on his old front porch inhaling second hand smoke like mist off the river and dead-arming each other because it was funny to watch Charlie squeal and because he could touch, then, warm skin on skin and have it not begrossorcreepy.





	anything but temptation

**Author's Note:**

> the title is a bastardised Oscar Wilde quote, because it's always fun to be really on the nose with these things

It's not like he likes the quiet days, but they have a kind of peace to them. He's sitting at the bar with excess energy humming under his skin, tapping his nails against the wood because a nice rhythm always helps when the quiet won't shut up and because it gets some of it out, anyway. It's quiet. He can deal with quiet. His own tapping beat and the gurgling hum of barflies slumped into their drinks is almost the same as the gang picking up on him and spinning it into a song. Or, it isn't like that at all, but he keeps tapping because it keeps one hand busy whilst the other brings the cool glass of his beer bottle to his lips.

 

So, maybe peace is bullshit.

 

He's uncomfortably small and stuck in his body, all in black to match Dennis despite Frank dragging him and Dee off that morning to a funeral. Some buttered-up ex-relative went belly up and Frank did the obvious, gathering the troops to grovel for scraps, abandoning Mac and Charlie to the bar and to each other. Suddenly it’s just like every long Reynolds family summer back when they were kids, where the twins would disappear into the sky and he and Charlie would be left to wander around the city like stray dogs.

 

(That morning Mac had been stood there in his vest and boxers and Dennis had faced him with his collar up, shirt only done half way and his black tie resting undone around his neck, beckoning to be handled. He’d fixed his cufflinks without looking away from Mac, raised one eyebrow and hadn't said a word. So Mac had looked away, because that's not against the rules and didn't notice his own jeans and shirt were a matching black until Dennis was long out the door.)

 

Charlie barrels in, slamming the door and waving a sheet of butter-yellow pad paper, tearing apart the calm like a garbage truck caught in a twister. “ - and he left this list pinned to my shirt so I guess we've gotta go pick up this shit for when they get back, man.”

 

Mac stands up, because Charlie is thrumming and almost shallow at the edges so he should be taller, solid, fill out the empty space. He passes Charlie the second beer he had resting on the counter, clinking the necks together to cover up the space where  _ hello _ should be. “Dude, what the shit are you talking about?”

 

“Frank,” he says, breathlessly, swigging from the bottle between every other word, “left this list. I guess he wants us to pick this shit up.”

 

Mac snatches the paper before Charlie can offer and scans the page, noting absently that even the loops of Frank’s handwriting drip with sleaze. “But this is all garbage.”

 

“ _ Yeah _ , it's garbage day. I guess he didn't want to miss out on the haul just because he was out of town.”

 

Mac looks at Charlie, rangy limbs and hopeful glint in his eye, and no time has passed since they were sitting on his old front porch inhaling second hand smoke like mist off the river and dead-arming each other because it was funny to watch Charlie squeal and because he could touch, then, warm skin on skin and have it not be  _ gross _ or  _ creepy _ . 

 

Charlie downs his beer and shatters the illusion in a hot second, grinning widely. “Dude, do you have any idea how fast a junkyard dog can run.”

 

“No, Charlie, and I have absolutely no need for that information.” 

 

Charlie smiles wider, and Mac can see the whites on around the irises of his eyes, tinged a dirty kind of pink. The smiles says,  _ guess what we're doing today? _

 

*

 

When they're alone, this is how Mac remembers Charlie; on his fifteenth birthday, dragged by Mac to a place called  _ Frickin Fried Chicken _ , looking like maybe, perhaps, it’s the best gesture he's received in his young life, because the place had a Big Bucket deal for four dollars and a busted whac-a-mole that spewed out money the more kills you got in and when he smiled his delight towards Mac things went worryingly dim beyond the lights in Charlie's eyes.

 

“Dude,” Mac had said, not laughing, not laughing but looking right at Charlie with scared kind of wonderment. “Don't look at me like that.” He slapped his arm down on Charlie's shoulder, all crazy-warm and not meaning a word of it. “It's creepy.”

 

Charlie hadn't dropped the smile, though, or the brightness on the edges of his eyes. It was like he'd just carried those things around with him for the rest of his life, waiting for Mac to be alone, for him to say something so wonderful that they both slipped back into place, like nothing had changed at all.

 

*

 

Mac knows Charlie likes cloudy days best, when the world is all half-lit and hazy.

 

Charlie points up at the little fissures between the clouds and explains as they walk that it’s so when he looks up at the sky more colours will curl over his eyes than he could probably imagine otherwise, and definitely more than he could name in one go. That's the kind of day that welcomes them, not too bright for their eyes or the gentle throb of headache that always haunts the back of his skull.

 

It's pale out, gray-washed, and it mutes the intensity of the dump well enough that Mac almost doesn't mind trudging through the unidentifiable sludge his shoes keep squelching in. The smell is already winding into his clothes and hair, but it's not as bad as he remembers. There's a sweetness, closer to rotting fruit than the throat-closing stink of shit Charlie carries back with him after excursions to the sewer. Like the day, it barely qualifies for unpleasant.

 

“Oh man, look at this stuff.” Charlie has long forgotten Frank’s list and is knee deep in a pile of abandoned furniture straight from the seventies, wrapping himself around a cracked glass lamp. “We need to take this shit back to the bar.”

 

“That’s like, the exact opposite of what we should do with it.” If Mac’s honest, though, he has seen some things around that almost make him want to burrow around for awhile until he drags out some treasure, but that’s more the product of  _ The Goonies _ being the only VHS in his house that didn’t break the TV growing up than Charlie’s childlike fascination with filth. Still, he can't say the mounted bear head Charlie digs out from under a busted dishwasher isn't one of the most badass things he's ever seen. It's a deep chocolate brown, glassy dark little eyes creeping out above a mouth splayed open by fangs. Horrifying and  _ fucking gorgeous _ at the same time.

 

“Dude, that’s a pub mascot right there,” he says, grabbing for it. Charlie, though, hugs it close to his chest. “Dude,” Mac repeats, “gimme.”

 

“Listen Mac, you can't just come into the dump and ignore the rules all weiner-neener, okay? You get to keep your haul, I get to keep mine.” Charlie shoves the bear head into the trash bag he has slid over his shoulder and Mac can't help but wonder how Dennis would react. He certainly would never let Charlie keep the thing, but he would be sly about it. Trick him, steal it when Charlie's attention was diverted elsewhere to the warring rat factions in the basement or Dee’s latest charity case of a problem.

 

Charlie calls him from three trash piles away, waving something that looks like a giant crucifix, and that draws the thought away from him. He clamours over the analogue TVs and mismatched shoes and leans the cross over his shoulders. “This is going, like directly above my bed. You were right man, this place is kind of awesome once you see past all the rotting food and medical waste.”

 

“Oh it'll grow on you,” Charlie says, “just like mould.”

 

*

 

It's barely late afternoon when they’re back at the bar, Charlie collapsed against Mac in a booth. Mac’s swimming with their double digit beer tally and Charlie’s legs went to rubber the moment he dug out the half tub of industrial solvent he found beneath an upturned bathtub and inhaled more glue than oxygen. Mac’s instinct is to puff out his chest and shove off the warm, soft weight Charlie leaves against his ribs, but he's too drunk to entertain it and too tired for the mental tug of war it churns up, so he lies back into the leather and let's Charlie sink in. 

 

He’s fine with it until Charlie’s restless wriggling around starts to make heat pool in the pit of his belly. “Oof,” he puts his hands on Charlie’s hips and tries to push him off, but Charlie wiggles back, solid and stuck against him like a parasite. 

 

“Hey,” Charlie says sleepily, mashing his face into the side of Mac’s. “S’okay.” He presses his lips against the corner of Mac’s mouth for a quick, sweet moment, then breathes against his cheek. “Like you said, when we were in highschool.”

 

Mac’s fingers sink too hard into the flesh of Charlie’s hips, because he’d forgotten that, buried it under memories of watching girl-on-girl skin flicks with Dennis and groping at the tits of any girl that didn’t look at him funny. He and Charlie, they would wrestle, wrap themselves around one another, pin each other hard and solid to the floor, closer than Mac would be when he made out with girls, and - with far less work and carefully placed mental imagery than when he would make out with girls - his body would react. Charlie would have his arms wound around Mac’s throat, lying across his front to immobilize him and Mac would flush warm all over, his body reacting before his brain could catch up to panic. 

 

So his mouth said; “it’s no big deal, man. Happens to guys all the time. We’re just lucky we’re friends already.” And his hips, denying the permission of his whited-out brain bucked up to meet Charlie’s weight.

 

Now, heavy, warm,  _ older _ and more aware, if maybe less present in the world, Charlie just kind of grinds back against him lazily in a way that could be accidental, but might not be at all. Mac just stays still, letting Charlie move, letting Charlie's breath fan warmly across his jaw, letting Charlie's hand crawl across his lap until he can't stay still at all.

 

“What the hell are you doing?” Mac’s whole body is a tense line, and he swallows roughly when he realises all that strain still pulses at his dick when he draws in tight like this. His dick, pulsing in Charlie's warm hand.

 

“I’m not stupid.” Charlie sits up on Mac’s lap, pushing all of his weight down  _ for the love of God.  _ “That's not gonna go away whilst I’m pressing against it. And I was comfortable. And I'm not sure if my legs still have knees anymore since the glue guy said he was gonna take them for damages.”

 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” It takes until now for Mac to realises his hands haven't moved, and they're still gripping Charlie's hips, blunt fingernails leaving angry half-moons in the pale skin. 

 

Charlie flaps his hand as if to brush the logic aside, which is helpful, actually in these kinds of situations. “I don't wanna move, you clearly wanna come. So just, y'know, lean back, if you want.”

 

It's very simple. Mac can nod or shake his head, doesn't even have to use his words this time. It doesn't even count, because it's Charlie and that clearly removes this from reality. He’s drunk and exhausted and it's Charlie's hand, not his, so he won't have to carry the sin around with him. 

 

Mac takes one hand off of Charlie's hips, rubbing for a moment at the deep red marks he's branded there and reaches around for his beer. He doesn't stop drinking until it's empty, but Charlie is still looking at him when he stops.

 

“What do you say, dude?”

 

Mac rolls his neck back to rest against the back of the booth and draws his eyes shut. Charlie kisses him properly, this time, fitting his chapped mouth square on Mac's and giggling at the tickle of Mac’s tongue when it pushes against the seam of his lips. Mac’s fingers dig in deeper which triggers Charlie's hand to tighten, and it's all very clumsy as they grope uselessly at each other. Mac bites Charlie's lip, because he likes to do that, even if girls usually complain. Charlie doesn't. He never really thought he would.  

 

Charlie just keeps kissing him, and Mac’s eyes stay closed, sleepy with alcohol and warm all over. They must fall asleep like that, hands above clothes but faces mashed together, and Mac isn't sure if they resolved whether he was too drunk to come. All he's really sure of is that he can still taste what must be  _ Charlie _ on his tongue.

 

*

 

When he gets ready for bed that night, peeling off the shirt that smells more like Charlie than himself and doesn't really match Dennis’ anything anymore, the man in question appears in the doorway and asks what Mac did all day. Mac looks, because he can't help but look at him there white tee and boxers clinging to his skin like a dare. 

 

He could say a lot of things that Dennis would pull apart with his fingers and teeth and the sharp sound of his laughter. he could say a lot of things that would make Dennis's face bloom red and the lattice of veins on his forehead and throat bulge out in irritance. “Nothing much,” he decides on. “Charlie and I just hung. It was nice, kinda like being fifteen again.”

 

Dennis doesn't say anything. He nods rather coldly and disappears into another room. 

 

Shrugging, Mac is left with himself, with a sweet thread of satisfaction unweaving in his belly and the smile to match. Every one of those things is still his when he turns out the light.

**Author's Note:**

> come chat with me on tumblr [@bohemicns](http://bohemicns.tumblr.com) if you feel so inclined


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